Teaching Self Management Skills (University of Kansas, KU)

Description:

What is a self management plan?

Teaching Self Management - Self-management plans are used to teach students to independently complete tasks and take an active role in monitoring and reinforcing their own behavior. An important goal in education is to foster self-reliance and independence. In fact, self-management strategies can be implemented before any problem behaviors occur. Research studies show that self-management strategies can be used to improve academic performance, productivity, time on-task, and to decrease problem behavior. The ability to use self management strategies effectively is a skill that becomes very important for success as children grow into adulthood. The critical elements of self-management include setting goals, monitoring behavior, and evaluating progress. Examples of self management include self monitoring, self evaluation, and self reinforcement.

When a student engages in self-monitoring, she observes her own behavior, records its occurrence on a data collection form, and graphs the data to evaluate progress. Self-evaluation strategies encourage students to set their own goals and compare their current performance as they work towards those goals. Both self-monitoring and self-evaluation are often used with self-reinforcement strategies. A student takes an active role in self-reinforcement strategies by determining how he will evaluate progress towards a goal and delivering a reinforcer to himself when he achieves the goal.